Align Infrastructure Architecture to Business Value
Take a service-based approach to integrate infrastructure into business conversations.
- Management has been unable to design an infrastructure environment and landscape that supports business results and value.
- Infrastructure is viewed as an undesirable cost, leading to underinvestment.
- The infrastructure team has been in a firefighting mode and expected to streamline operations at the same time.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Infrastructure teams who fail to see and meet business needs will be fired. There is increasing pressure for the infrastructure team to demonstrate its direct contribution to business outcomes. In a digitally enabled world, failing technology infrastructure can have greater impact than ever.
- Infrastructure functions not only as provider of core technical services, but also as broker to balance demand and capacity. All infrastructure design starts with translating business demands rather than technical requirements.
Impact and Result
- Translate stakeholder objectives into infrastructure requirements. Incorporate infrastructure architecture quality attributes while evaluating the current state and future state of the infrastructure landscape to align with business goals.
- Evaluate your infrastructure architecture from core services (i.e. email, internet, telephony) to obtain an end-user perspective for the range of issues, risks, and opportunities to address.
- Select the right architecture solutions to help achieve business goals. Examine potential solutions with respect to established EA principles and constraints before implementation.
- Review and recalibrate your infrastructure architecture so that it accurately reflects and supports stakeholder needs and technical environments. Actively involve and consult both stakeholders and technical teams throughout the architecture design process.
About Info-Tech
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We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
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Contributors
- Walter F. Green, University of Arkansas, Director of Enterprise Architecture
- Jeffrey Kirkell, Project Management Institute, Enterprise Architect
- James Tully, Quirk Trip, Infrastructure Architecture
- David Borsato, The Regional Municipality of York, Projects Manager Enterprise Architecture
- Jordan Corn, AAA Mid-Atlantic, Director of Enterprise Architecture
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